Hello! We’re just coming from a weekend of great ministry here at
OceanSide! My wife gave a powerful word to the ladies on Saturday, and
the men had an opportunity to serve those wonderful women that God gave
us! It’s such a great privilege to be where God has placed us, and we
don’t take it lightly.
In the last blog, we were talking about the Israelites and how they were experiencing trouble in the midst of their journey, and as a result, concluded that it was “God’s doing.” Let’s pick up right where we left off . . .
Jehoshaphat—remember, he’s the King of Judah—said in 2 Kings 3:11: “Is there no prophet of the Lord here whom we may inquire of the Lord by him?” Things got tough, and finally someone said, “Let’s inquire of the Lord.” It’s amazing how often we wait for problems to get so big that we can’t handle them and then we turn to God to see what He thinks about them. Is anybody listening to me? Nobody consulted of the Lord before they even embarked on this whole journey!
Nobody asked the Lord which route they should take. Nobody asked the Lord if they should even attack the Moabites. God was not consulted until the going got tough, and then suddenly they fell on their knees, got all spiritual, and cried out to God. They probably sounded something like this: “Oh God, what would Thou havest me to do? Here I am, your humble, broken servant.” Hello? Why do we wait for the going to get tough before we go to God when He’s always there and willing to be consulted?
So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.”
I read that and said, “Goooolly (spoken like Gomer Pyle), well, lookie there! Elisha just ‘happened’ to be there!” What do you make of that? Talk about spiritual kingdom coincidence! Elisha could have been in one of ten thousand places, yet there he was in the middle of nowhere just waiting for somebody to come and consult the Word of the Lord.
Prophets have an uncanny way of being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes I wonder, “What has happened to the true prophets?” You know, I remember being around prophets thirty years ago, and it made me nervous. I didn’t like being around them. Nowadays, everybody is a prophet. If it isn’t a “good word,” then it isn’t deemed a Word of the Lord.
We tend to be like the Israelite king and say, “Oh, I don’t like that prophet because all he ever does is speak bad things to me. I like prophets who say good things.” Today, the world is full of prophets who have nothing but goooood things to say: “Oh, God loves you and wants to bless you, and He is giving to you and pouring out, etc.” Whatever happened to, “Turn from thy sin, and the Lord will bless you.” When I used to be around some of those prophets from back in the day, I always thought they knew things about me that I didn’t want anybody to know. Come on, you act like you’ve never had anything in your life that you didn’t want anybody else to know! We all have had things that make us think, “Hmmm, I wonder if he’s going to be reading my mail; I’d better repent before I go have lunch with this guy.” Anyway, enough about prophets, and I’m not saying that they can’t prophesy good words. I’m just saying that it seems like all we hear from these days are what I call, “Pop Culture Prophets.” There are far too many of them on the scene today.
12 And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.
13 Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”
See, this is what I’m talking about: the prophet looked right at the King of Israel and said, “What do I have to do with you?” He then sneers at him and treats him with a level of disdain. Elisha says, “Go the prophets of your father and mother.” Anybody know who his mother was? The king’s mother was Jezebel! At this point, she was still alive and continued to be so throughout this guy’s entire reign.
But the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
Do you know that sometimes we speak the same curses over our own lives? Many times we think the worst of our own situations, and oftentimes we don’t realize that we’re thinking the same about God!!!
Whatever happened to, “Speak the Word only and my servant shall be healed”? Huh? Whatever happened to, “Where is the Word of God . . . what would Jesus say about this situation”? If we don’t know what God says, we ought to open the Scripture and find out! It seems that our first inclination is oftentimes to speak words of cursing over our own lives, families, ministries, and businesses. It’s almost like, “Well, I guess we’re all going under.” God’s not called us “to go under”! We might not always “go over,” but bless God, He’ll always bring us “through”!
Look how the king blames the Lord:
“10 And the king of Israel said, “Alas! For the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
I don’t recall anybody asking the Lord anything before they started this whole journey! The Lord didn’t do that! That was the king saying, “You owe us money, and since we want it, we’re coming after it.”
I’d better stop here. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. Let’s continue to look for God’s hand in our lives and to seek Him early!
Grace and peace,
pg
In the last blog, we were talking about the Israelites and how they were experiencing trouble in the midst of their journey, and as a result, concluded that it was “God’s doing.” Let’s pick up right where we left off . . .
Jehoshaphat—remember, he’s the King of Judah—said in 2 Kings 3:11: “Is there no prophet of the Lord here whom we may inquire of the Lord by him?” Things got tough, and finally someone said, “Let’s inquire of the Lord.” It’s amazing how often we wait for problems to get so big that we can’t handle them and then we turn to God to see what He thinks about them. Is anybody listening to me? Nobody consulted of the Lord before they even embarked on this whole journey!
Nobody asked the Lord which route they should take. Nobody asked the Lord if they should even attack the Moabites. God was not consulted until the going got tough, and then suddenly they fell on their knees, got all spiritual, and cried out to God. They probably sounded something like this: “Oh God, what would Thou havest me to do? Here I am, your humble, broken servant.” Hello? Why do we wait for the going to get tough before we go to God when He’s always there and willing to be consulted?
So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.”
I read that and said, “Goooolly (spoken like Gomer Pyle), well, lookie there! Elisha just ‘happened’ to be there!” What do you make of that? Talk about spiritual kingdom coincidence! Elisha could have been in one of ten thousand places, yet there he was in the middle of nowhere just waiting for somebody to come and consult the Word of the Lord.
Prophets have an uncanny way of being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes I wonder, “What has happened to the true prophets?” You know, I remember being around prophets thirty years ago, and it made me nervous. I didn’t like being around them. Nowadays, everybody is a prophet. If it isn’t a “good word,” then it isn’t deemed a Word of the Lord.
We tend to be like the Israelite king and say, “Oh, I don’t like that prophet because all he ever does is speak bad things to me. I like prophets who say good things.” Today, the world is full of prophets who have nothing but goooood things to say: “Oh, God loves you and wants to bless you, and He is giving to you and pouring out, etc.” Whatever happened to, “Turn from thy sin, and the Lord will bless you.” When I used to be around some of those prophets from back in the day, I always thought they knew things about me that I didn’t want anybody to know. Come on, you act like you’ve never had anything in your life that you didn’t want anybody else to know! We all have had things that make us think, “Hmmm, I wonder if he’s going to be reading my mail; I’d better repent before I go have lunch with this guy.” Anyway, enough about prophets, and I’m not saying that they can’t prophesy good words. I’m just saying that it seems like all we hear from these days are what I call, “Pop Culture Prophets.” There are far too many of them on the scene today.
12 And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.
13 Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”
See, this is what I’m talking about: the prophet looked right at the King of Israel and said, “What do I have to do with you?” He then sneers at him and treats him with a level of disdain. Elisha says, “Go the prophets of your father and mother.” Anybody know who his mother was? The king’s mother was Jezebel! At this point, she was still alive and continued to be so throughout this guy’s entire reign.
But the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
Do you know that sometimes we speak the same curses over our own lives? Many times we think the worst of our own situations, and oftentimes we don’t realize that we’re thinking the same about God!!!
Whatever happened to, “Speak the Word only and my servant shall be healed”? Huh? Whatever happened to, “Where is the Word of God . . . what would Jesus say about this situation”? If we don’t know what God says, we ought to open the Scripture and find out! It seems that our first inclination is oftentimes to speak words of cursing over our own lives, families, ministries, and businesses. It’s almost like, “Well, I guess we’re all going under.” God’s not called us “to go under”! We might not always “go over,” but bless God, He’ll always bring us “through”!
Look how the king blames the Lord:
“10 And the king of Israel said, “Alas! For the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
I don’t recall anybody asking the Lord anything before they started this whole journey! The Lord didn’t do that! That was the king saying, “You owe us money, and since we want it, we’re coming after it.”
I’d better stop here. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. Let’s continue to look for God’s hand in our lives and to seek Him early!
Grace and peace,
pg
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